He Makes All Things New

Good morning church family, boy does it feel good to say that!

For those who we haven’t met yet, my name is Joe and it is my honor and privilege to serve you as your pastor. And since starting this week, man has it been a crazy and full one!

Prayer

Father you tell us your word is alive and active, you tell us that you breathed your life into it and that it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servants of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Lord we might not know what specific good work you are calling us to today, but we ask that as we give you this time, will your spirit breath new life into our hearts and minds. Let us be renewed today through the living word of God, the word that lasts forever. Amen.

Today’s message is entitled, “He Makes All Things New”

And our main texts for today are going to be Revelation 21 as well as Isaiah 25, but it will take a little bit of time to get to them today so go ahead and earmark them now in your bibles, and if you don’t have a bible, there are some in the pews.

We all like new stuff right? Though we know with our minds that new stuff is only new for a brief moment, and that temporary happiness will fade in time, the new car smell goes away. But new things can often let us down as well…take the case in point. On Wednesday, Elizabeth, Bailey and I were outside putting together their trampoline after they got home from school…FINISH TELLING THE STORY…

Brand new camper, just like that went up in smoke. Bailey’s brand new shoes… burnt to a crisp. But the reality of that camper fire is that God’s hands of protection were all over my family. And it is a stark reminder that our hope isn’t in things. Our hope isn’t in homes, or cars, or shoes. Our hope isn’t in something new and shiny…no our hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness. Because as Clay Walker so eloquently sang…What are you going to do when New wears off and the old shines through?

But one of the reasons I think we like new things so much is because we are creative beings. We like to create things, we like neat things created by others.

We are creative beings because we are made in the image of a creative God.

Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Time, space and matter all came into being when the word of God was spoken.

And typically when we think about creation and our creative God, we move right past the time part and right past the space part and think only about the earth part.

But let’s stop there for a minute. In the beginning God created the heavens…

Not just heaven, but the heavens.

God created heavens… or levels of space.

And science has proven the first two levels of space. The first being the atmosphere that allows us to live and breath here on this earth.

The Second Heaven that being of space, where the planets and galaxies are, that semi explored region that is so far beyond our human comprehension that we struggle understanding how fast it is, and then the bible talks about a 3rd heaven. This is the dwelling place of God, and no matter of human effort will ever be able to peer into or understand the dwelling place of God. The Apostle Paul testifies to this 3rd heaven in 2 Corinthians 12

2 Corinthians 12:1-4

This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord.  I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. 3 Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know 4 that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell.

The 3rd Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, he spoke in Isaiah 66:1

So in the beginning God created the atmosphere, all of space, and even his own dwelling place which we affectionately refer to as heaven. And then he created the earth. And this earth, no matter how amazing it truly is was never meant to be our permanent home.

Philippians 3:20

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ

Heaven, the dwelling place of God is supposed to be our home.

And one day, we get to join all of those faithful loved ones who have gone before us and spend eternity with God in Heaven.

Revelation 21:1-8 Read in entirety.

The New Heaven and the New Earth- Revelation 21:1-2

Our creative God isn’t done creating yet! Yes, in the beginning he made the heavens and the earth but right now, Jesus is preparing a new place for us.

Revelation 21:1

I saw a new heaven and a new earth…for the old heaven and old earth have disappeared…

John 14:1-6

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.[a] If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?[b] 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

Yesterday there was a beautiful wedding down here at the church. And it was beautiful being able to look down upon the happenings every now and then. The bride and groom coming together and all the celebration that goes into that!

There will be a day when the New Jerusalem, the New City of God that Jesus has prepared for us will descend from heaven and there will be a great party, a great wedding.

We will be his home- his dwelling place. Revelation 21:3-4

His home will be with us. Home truly is where your heart is. When I asked my wife to marry me, I proposed to her by asking her to be my home. And throughout the past month while we have been living in two different places, while separately taking care of the girls it has been so tough. Our hearts have not been at home because our home is where our heart is. And church, we are the bride of Christ. His heart longs to be with his bride…and there will be a great wedding feast.

The prophet Isaiah spoke forth about this coming day as well. In fact this was a double prophesy, or a dual-fulfillment prophesy. A prophesy that has two meanings. It spoke to Jews regarding the restoration of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile but the other prophesy speaks forth to the coming of the savior and the eternal home of his followers.

Isaiah 25:6-9

Our eternal home will be with God, but before that…we need to make him our dwelling place.

If we go back to Isaiah 25:4-5

You have been my dwelling place… Shelter, safety, security

And it is possible to make him our dwelling place HERE AND NOW. To experience what it is like to live in His presence every day.

You know the other day, we were in the midst of a trial, a fire. Literally, but even in the midst of that fire, even in the midst of the heat of this past week, we can experience the presence of God.

To expereince the refuge that He offers from the storms. The shelter he is from the heat.

It is possible to experience, to be a part of that great wedding feast. To be there when he wipes away every tear.

He has made a way for us, to become his children.

Revelation 21:5- He makes all things new.

He makes all things new. A new heaven, a new earth and even you and me. He makes us new creations in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 “ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

He has made us new…we are a new creation. Those of us in Christ have been given a new spirit and a new heart. We have been born again. Not of anything we could have done, or think we have done, but only because Jesus has made us a new creation.

It is by faith alone in who Christ is and what He has done that we are made right in Gods sight.

See each of us have sinned. We have all fallen short of God’s glorious standard. And the wages of sin is death. Eternal separation from God. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Faith is the substance of what we hope for, it is the evidence of what we cannot see.

No matter of our human effort could ever please God or reach God. We may try to with all our might live a righteous life, but we all fall short. We may try to peer through time and space but we will never experience that 3rd heaven by our own human efforts. We are separated from God because of our sin.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

He made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.

This is why Isaiah prophesied that we who trust in him, who proclaim that He is our Lord…those are who will experience in the salvation that he brings.

That is why John prophesied in Revelation 21:6-8- THAT After he makes us new…

The Alpha and Omega will say, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and Omega—the beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

He makes all things new…including you and me.

We will renewed again by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

We will be his people and He will be our God. He will wipe away our every tear. There will be no more death or decay, no more sorrow or pain…all these things will be gone forever.

If you want to experience God’s presence, God’s shelter here and now, and if you want to experience his eternal blessings of a new life in Christ then all you have to do is confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and that God has raised him from the dead. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God and it is by openly declaring your faith with your mouth that you are saved.